Random Thursday Morning Thoughts

This made national news. He actually did get permanently kicked off the squad, but the Texas school denied it was for kissing a guy. However, they didn't state their reason. 

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• Thoughts on the Blue Origin "space" journey yesterday.
• I almost think it's cheating to call this "space travel."  Someone accurately said yesterday that the flight's length of travel was the equivalent of going the distance of the width of two dimes held up against a typical school room globe.  
• Then again, I wouldn't get in that rocket for a krillion dollars. 
• Another analogy was that the Earth's atmosphere is no bigger than the skin around an apple.  That makes it feel very fragile. William Shatner certainly felt that way.
• But one thing I'm absolutely in awe of is how the rocket comes back to Earth and lands straight up. I can't believe that is possible.
  
  
  
• I've always loved Shatner and am genuinely happy for the guy. The night before yesterday's trip, he was poking fun of his fantastic performance of Rocket Man in 1978 . 
  
  
   
• The Big Lie has taken a strange twist. Not voting in order to own the Libs?
  
  
  
• This is wild out of Waco. The defendant was convicted of capital murder for a 2011 offense and sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the case in 2017.  With a retrial scheduled for this month, the D.A.'s office filed a Motion for Continuance because, according to them, a key witness had recanted. The judge denied the request. The State then simply gave up and dismissed the case. The defendant walked out of jail yesterday after being locked up for over 10 years. (If you want to know how much the D.A.'s office trying to do damage control, their Motion for Dismissal was five pages long. It normally would be a one page pre-printed form.)
  
  
  
• Katie Couric has a new book. This revelation in it doesn't make her look good. And it puts the late RBG in a different light as well. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Wall Street Journal went after Baylor. The story is behind a paywall so I can't read it, but the lede reads, "Parents at Baylor University had the worst repayment rate for a type of federal loan called Parent Plus among private schools with at least a $1 billion endowment . . . ." 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• This guy holds the position of "Political Director" for the Texas Republican Party. 
  
  
  
• Cuban is making the news again as he ignores Gov. Abbott's edict. (Side note: Why in the world did ESPN's GameDay decide to use that guy as the "guest picker" for Texas/OU?) 
  
  
  
• This slow embrace of the far right of the January 6th Insurrection should scare you to death. It is eerily becoming akin to the attempted coup of the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany on November 9, 1923. And that's not hyperbole. 
  
  
  
• Oh, I don't know. Pay more?
  
  
  
• I love the Traces of Texas twitter account which posts old Texas photos.  Yesterday, I learned this is what he looks like. (That's what I intend to look like when I retire and flee to the jungles of Costa Rica.)
  
  
  
• I've installed smart switches and have used smart outlets (with the simple plug-in adapter). Love them both. But yesterday I bought a package four smart bulbs.  Holy cow. Easy to use and fantastic. I really don't have a need to change them to different colors or change the degree of brightness (and sure don't need it pulsating to music), but you can do it all on your phone. It's the timer option on all these devices that I love. 
  
  
  
• Redistricting is the most important thing that happens in Austin, but I've learned no one really cares about it. 

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

I don't remember the school funding lawsuits back then, and I'm not sure whatever happened to them. I also don't remember that movie which I used a graphic that was was completely unrelated to the story.    

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• If there is anything we've learned over the years is that accepting a cause of death from a Medical Examiner is a dicey proposition. Here the death is ruled a "manual strangulation" instead of a "ligature strangulation." That's pretty specific. And this finding was made even though the ME also believes she had been dead "three to four weeks" when found.  Be cautious.
  
  
  
• Someone asked me this the other day, and I still don't have an answer for it: How exactly did Gabby Petitio's case gain national traction? I mean, it was in the news even before she was found dead and even before the bodycam video of her and her boyfriend being stopped in Utah became public.  Why? What caused her case to become national news when hundreds (thousands?) of young women go missing every year?
  
  
  
• Side note: We might want to leave the father alone. Moments ago: 
  
  
  
• American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, among others, have decided to ignore Gov. Abbott's Vaccine Mandate Ban and will follow the federal directive.
  
  
  
• I suppose Abbott will want these to go away:
  
  
  
• The President's press secretary took a shot at Ted Cruz yesterday, and The Dallas Morning News piles on this morning by including this photo with the story. 
  
  
  
• In the middle of the night, the Texas House approved a new map for state house representatives. Wise County is still moving to District 64 with incumbent Rep. Lynn Stuckey, but the revised map changes the lines in Denton County to include Robson Ranch and little more Republican area. That helps Denton County Republican voting power over Wise County Republican voting power.  

  

  New map gets Robison Ranch area.

  
  

  

  First version of the map was limited to 
  "inner city" Denton. 

  
  
• Yet another death at Fort Hood.  The army might consider invading and occupying that place to figure out why that keeps happening. 
  
  
  
• I don't know why it would be otherwise, but the public access to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner information always seems a bit odd to me. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Is that a Starbucks or a Whataburger going in on Highway 380 in Bridgeport? 
  
  
  
• I know I'm getting old when a social security story causes my radar to go off. 
  
  
  
• Big, if true. 
  
  
  
• Random attorney job out there. When I first started reading it, I was thinking, "That sounds like a gawd-awful job." Then it got worse. 
  
  
  
• Messenger: Above the Fold

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

 I posted this less than clear picture because a faithful reader had taken it in downtown Fort Worth across from the Worthington Hotel and sent it to me. You know what that was? An "Occupy Wall Street" protest. Remember those? 

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• Greg Abbott announced yesterday that, by invoking the magical "executive order", he can control how a private business wants to decide as to how it wants to make its workplace safe. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• This is the same governor who dictated a mask mandate and closed businesses. 
• This is the same governor who, once the right wing bashed his head in over the mask mandate, said this when he announced he would withdraw it:
  
  
  
• Of course, Abbott's vaccine ban is unenforceable and illegal under the Supremacy Clause. This is all for show. 
• By the way, when are we banning the polio vaccine? I think it, too, is "safe, effective and our best defense." 
• As much as Abbott has taken a beating in the polls (and has tried to remake himself into a mini-Trump to save himself), I still think he wins the Republican nomination next year.  Assuming COVID doesn't get him, Allen West can't win. And Don Huffines is a simpleton with statements like this yesterday. You want to tell us which tax will replace it?
  
  
  
• Say what?
  
  
  
• Raiders coach Jon Gruden is abruptly out after more emails surfaced and were published by The New York Times last night. He had six years left on his $10 million a year contract -- a contract I always thought was nuts. In case you want to know what he wrote, here you go.  As they said on The Ticket this morning, "He hit all the numbers on the Old White Guy Bingo Card." And these headlines, even from Fox News, are really uniform.  But I expect Fox News to start coming to his defense as the day unfolds.
  
  
  
• I'd bet everything I own that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturns this ruling from yesterday. 

  

  That's quite the glamor shot of the killer, however.

  
  
• When crime is down, you create crime to justify your job. This was a sting operation entrapping adults online by cops posing as women and men offering sex for money.  And look at the taxpayer expense: "[1] Tarrant County Sheriff Deputies in the Human Trafficking Unit worked in the detail with [2] Fort Worth and [3] Arlington police, the [4] Texas Department of Public Safety, [5] the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, [6] the Texas Office of the Attorney General and [7] Tarrant County constables."  Notably absent is the Tarrant County DA's Office who now has all those cases dumped on its lap.
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  
• Don't look now, but the price of oil is on the move. 
  
  
  
• The new water fountains at the Wise County Court Center (don't call it an "annex") have a place to fill your water bottle. And it keeps track of "bottles saved." Very progressive.
  
  
  
• Of all my thoughts on the great College Football Saturday, this was the most random: What's the purpose of all of those arm bands? Heck, what would be the purpose of even one of them? 
  
  
  
• I finally watched Lincoln starring Daniel Dale Lewis.  I love that guy.  And the cast is so large and so great that I was constantly asking myself " Wasn't that guy in" O Brother Where Art Though? Breaking Bad? Deadwood? House of Cards? The answer each time was always "yes."